Is there a textbook for Character Animation?

[robertk38703320]

I looked over amazon.com hoping to find something on the order of "AE Character Animation for Dummies". Found nothing. Am I just not asking the question correctly?

[oksamurai]

Since we're relatively new I don't think there's anything quite like that yet.

The closest would be this starter video. I hope to make more like these in the future covering more topics!

[robertk38703320]

I got my first "scribble sketch" done in Photoshop and imported into AE Character Animator. Now I want to do my first rigging. I have ARM_RIGHT selected to both columns. I choose the STAPLE TOOL and try to attach the arm to TORSO, but get an error message saying: "Select a single independent group first". Where do I find it? What do I click on? When I try to use the HANDLE TOOL, it says: "Select a group". Again...what are they pointing me to?

[mark@headTrix]

Looks like you have to download the Photoshop Template so you can copy and paste your artwork into the Template....or watch some videos on Adobe Site or YouTube from oksamurai he has some really well done videos.

you have to re-organize your Photoshop file so that Character Animator can rig it. You need a main folder with your Character Name, and inside of that MAIN folder will be 2 other folders (1 for the "Head" and one for the "Body" then your arms, and legs, and torso will go INSIDE of the Body folder. Then to make things moveable we assign a "+" before the layer name. So your arms would be called

"+Right Arm" and "+Left Arm" - then Character Animator will add a Crown symbol in the layers Panel since it will recognize the layer as a Warp Independent layer.

Your so close! just need to organize your files a little bit more!

In Character Animator go to Window>Workspace>Start. Then you will see template puppets.... on the right of the Template Puppets it says "See More" - click that and then scroll down the page of all the template characters (which you can also look at to see how they are organized) and the 2nd to last template is "Blank: Blank PSD & AI templates." You can download that and use it to start all of your new puppets on the correct layers which are already named and organized!

Hope that helps!

mark

[mark@headTrix]

There is also a new Character Animator video series now on Lynda.com

Hope that helps!

[felicias82534720]

I know this post is old but I am curious to see if a step-by-step has been published yet for Character Animator. I have really wanted something that has instructions in print from the start of creating your own puppet to animating. Anything out there since 2017 in print?

[TheOriginalGC]

I don't believe so, but @oksamurai has been tirelessly making step-by-step videos combined with sample puppets from his website at http://okaysamurai.com - check out the FAQ section.